DIRECTORY 335
I AM CUBA
Mikhail Kalatozov, 1964Hidden away in Soviet archives
for three decades, Kalatozov’s
I Am Cuba was restored following
a campaign led by US director
Martin Scorsese in the 1990s. A
joint Soviet–Cuban production, it
was not well received on release,
and had been mostly forgotten.
Yet the movie is an extraordinary
document of its time, telling the
story of oppressed peasants in
1950s Cuba, and their resistance,
spurred on by the hope that Fidel
Castro’s revolution would bring a
brighter future. The movie is now
also celebrated for its extraordinary
tracking shots in which the camera
seems to float magically about—
an effect achieved by strapping the
camera to the cameraman’s waist
and moving him along a carefully
linked set of pulleys.CLOSELY OBSERVED TRAINS
Jirí Menzel, 1966Set in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia,
Jirí Menzel’s Closely Observed
Trains (known in the US as Closely
Watched Trains) is a wry and
touching look at the perils of sexual
awakening. The grim realities of
war are never far away as young
station guard Miloš strives to lose
his virginity, but Menzel’s witty
screenplay, inspired by Bohumil
Hrabal’s book, keeps the focus
firmly on a universal human
problem. Like other movies of the
Czech New Wave, the movie serves
as a reminder to Czechs of the
brutalizing effects of the system
under which they live, but the
tone is sardonic and gentle rather
than strident.PERSONA
Ingmar Bergman, 1966Persona, by Swedish director
Ingmar Bergman, is an intense
psychological drama that turns
into a horror movie as the central
relationship unravels. A young
nurse (Bibi Andersson) is
assigned to take care of a well-
known actress (Liv Ullmann),
who has mysteriously become
mute. To fill the silence, the nurse
confides in her about her life,
including having an abortion as
a young girl. But things turn nasty
when the nurse discovers the
actress has been psychoanalyzing
her. The actress’s silent rejection
of the gender-restrictive roles of
motherhood and nursing is, some
critics believe, the focus of the
movie, but it also explores the
bleakness of illness and madness.
See also: The Seventh Seal 136–39THE GRADUATE
Mike Nichols, 1967At the time it was released, The
Graduate seemed daring in its
subject matter, dealing as it does
with intergenerational sex. Young
college graduate Benjamin Braddock
(Dustin Hoffman) embarks upon a
sexual relationship with Mrs.
Robinson (Anne Bancroft) and then
falls in love with her daughter Elaine
Robinson (Katherine Ross), when he.
The apparently conventional happy
ending, in which Benjamin stops
Elaine from marrying the wrong
man and escapes with her on a
bus, is not quite what it seems. The
movie deliberately aimed to tap into
youth culture with its iconic sound
track (by Simon and Garfunkel),
setting a trend for youth movies.to stop water from being lost to his
neighbors’ crops, and who is in love
with the village girl whom his
brother marries. Shot in shimmering
black and white, the movie elevates
melodrama into poetry.
JASON AND THE
ARGONAUTS
Don Chaffey, 1963
Underpinned by Bernard
Herrmann’s stirring brass music,
Don Chaffey’s movie makes the
most of Ray Harryhausen’s stop-
motion animation of clay models to
bring to life the story of Jason, the
hero of Greek mythology who led
his crew, the Argonauts, on a quest
for the legendary Golden Fleece.
Harryhausen’s animations have a
distinctive style, and his army of
skeletons rising from the ground
is impressive even today. Seen on
the big screen in full color and
sound, Jason and the Argonauts
remains a genuinely stirring epic.
ONIBABA
Kaneto Shindo, 1964
Kaneto Shindo’s Onibaba works
both as a horror movie and a period
drama. It tells the story of a mother
and daughter who set traps and
murder samurai in order to survive
during a time of civil war in 14th-
century Japan. Shot in a decidedly
chilling black and white, it is a
parable of the suffering undergone
by all the innocent bystanders
throughout history. When the
old woman kills one samurai, she
pulls off his mask to find his face
disfigured like a hibakusha (a
victim of the nuclear bomb).
When she wears the mask, her
face becomes disfigured too.